
Class E 4 ^ "^ 



THE OLIVE BRA.lSrOH. ' 



REMARKS 



HON. GEORGE P. EISHER, 

OF DELAWARE. 



DELIVERED IN THE flOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 11, 1862. 

The House having under consideration the joint resolution in relation to the 
Abolition of Slavery, introduced by Mr. Roscoe Conkling, of New York, 
Ml". Fisher said : 

Mr. Speaker : — I am not placed in tte same delicate position in 
reference to this resolution which my excellent friend and neighbor 
from the eastern shore' district of Maryland has informed this House 
he occupies. He tells us, sir, that lie is a slaveholder, (and I may 
properly add, perhaps, that he is one among the largest slaveholders 
in this House, if not the very largest,) and that he should feel a deli- 
cacy in voting for this resolution holding out to the slaveholders the 
pecuniary aid of the General Government, because it might look as 
though he had a personal interest in voting money into his own 
pocket. He also says that he has not yet had un ' opportunity since 
the proposition has been before the House to communicate upon the 
subject with his constituents, and learn their views in reference to the 
propriety of its adoption by Congress. I am not in either category . 
I have talked much with these my constituents more immediately inter- 
ested in this subject, and although representing on this floor a slavehold- 
ing State,(though she is only nominally slaveholding,) and one in which, 
I deeply regret to say that the madness of pro-slavery sentiments with 
a considerable class of individuals rages as virulently and as deeply as' 
it does anywhere, even in the State of South Carolina or Virginia, 
yet I am not myself a holder of any slaves, nor do I consider myself 
bound to stand here to advocate exclusively the interests of that small 
class of men in my State who hold slaves, (numbering, all told, less 
than six hundred,) but as the representative of the people of the State 
generally. While I would be watchful to see that the interest of the 
slaveholding portion of my constituency shall receive no wrong, if in 



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my power to avert that wrong, yet I feel that the highest duty which 
I owe to those who sent me here is to look with scrupulous regard 
aud vigilant eye to the interest of the toiling thousands who make 
up the great bulk of my people, and whose labor, after all, makes 
up the wealth of the State. I repeat, sir, that I stand not herd 
to-day as the special Representatives of slaveholders, and am free 
from the embarassment of owning any slaves myself. I once owned 
some, but the last of these, through bills of manumission, under the 
operation of the laws of our State, have besome emancipated. 

Sii', I was reared and nurtured in the lap, upon the very bosom of 
slavery. I have seen it in all its good aud evil forms and phases; 
and I will here say that they who see nothing but unmitigated wrong 
and oppression and inhumanity in the system are quite as much at. 
fault as they who regard it as an institution divine in its origin and 
cbristianizing in all its influences and operations. I think I can duly 
appreciate, therefore, from the position which I have occupied, that of 
gentlemen who represent the more southern of what are commonly 
known as the border slave States. I know they desire and they 
ought to have time to consult the sentiments and views of their re- 
spective constituenccs upon this most grave and interesting proposi- 
tion. I can readily underttand how they _should feel an indisposition 
to have the question pushed upon them with undue haste, for I be- 
lieve they desire to meet it in the same spirit which has prompted the 
President to present it to our consideration. But, Mr. .Speaker, with 
all due respect for the situation of my friends from the other border 
States who have spoken in this debate, and with becoming deference 
to their judgment and opinions, I must be allowed to say that I think 
t^ey are altogether mistaken in the view which they have taken of 
thte meaning of this resolution, and of the message in w^hich the Pres- 
ident has been pleased to present it. 

The vtnerable gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Wickliffe,] who 
first addressed the House in opposition to the resolution, ha.s, in mj 
humble judgment, totally misconceived its spirit and miscalculated its 
effect and operation. He seems to regard it as the forerunner of a 
series of measures of confiscation and emancipation by which the in- 
stitution of slavery is suddenly and violently to be uprooted in all the 
border, and, indeed, in all the seceeding States ; and my venerable 
and distinguished friend, his colleague, at whose feet and from whose 
lips I received some 0/ my earHest lessons in the wholesome doctrines 
of the old Whig party, [Mr. Crittenden,] and to whom I have al- 
ways looked as much as to any man in the country for guidance and 
instruction upon all the great questioiis pertaining to our national af- 






3 

fairs, I am sorry to see, has followed in tbe wake of liis colleague and 
taken tiie same erroneous view relative to the tendency of this resolu- 
tion and the propriety of its adoption. :<' vvni ,, li ;t i.>o ;-iiii 
Gentlemen over the way, sir, seem to think thiattbie proposHJoti, 
contained in this resolution, which is word for word the same as that 
presented by the President in his message for our consideration, is tO' 
be received and regarded, not as a matter of option upon the part of 
the slaveholding States respectively — a proposition wliich they may 
reject or adopt, just as they may choose to determine — bnt as a threat 
upon the part of the Federal Government, if adopted by Congress, a 
virtual declaration of intention that if the slave States do not of their 
own accord adopt a policy of emancipation, they will be forced into 
it by the power of the General Government. Mr. Speaker, I am ut- 
terly at a loss to conceive how any such construction can be placed 
upon a resolution so plain and a message so fairly and honestly 
worded. To my mind, it seems unfair and really unkind to attempt 
to place any such strained construction upon either the resolution or 
the message. I look upon them in a very different light. I regard 
the policy contemplated by the President, not as an entering wedge 
for a series of measures of confiscation and emancipation under the 
war power of the Governrnent, but as altogether a counter project to 
any such series of measures. I regard it, sir, as but a reassertion of 
the principle which has been always recognized by both the old Whig 
and Democratic parties that the people of each State shall be left free 
at all times to regulate their own domestic institutions in their own 
way. I look upon it as a proposition intended to manifest in good 
faith upon the part of the President and his administration, and all who 
vote for its adoption, and intention to leave the States entirely free to 
select their own time and mode of emancipation, or to reject the sys- 
tem altogether, and as a pledge or faith on their part to perpetrate 
no injustice to any southern State. Could I believe that the pui"pose 
of the President or those who favor this resolution was a mere- trap 
or sham — could I suppose for a moment that it means that if we do 
not in each of the slaveholding States immediately or at some early 
day inaugurate a rapid scheme of emancipation, then the whole power 
of the Federal Government should be exerted to compel us to it, 
State by State, upon the principle of French elections, I would be 
among the last to give it any countenance whatever. 

B«t, sir, I do not thus regard it. I rather view it as an olive 
branch of peace and harmony and good faith presented to tbe border 
States, and indeed to all the southern States — even those which have 
seceded. I see in its adoption a settlement and a final settlement of 



all agry discussion and agitation upon this terrible question of slavery, 
■which comes up here and in almost all public deliberative bodies in 
this country, like Satan among the sons of God, to afflict and destroy 
^our happiness and prosperity. I hear, in its kindly invitation, the 
voice ^f the mighty North, composed of twenty millions of free white 
men — men who labor for themselves — having the power now to over- 
run and lay waste the entire southern country and liberate its slaves, 
speaking to us language like this : " We know, as you know, that 
sl9,very ha§ been the hot-bed in which treason, has been nurtured ; 
we know it is the cockatrice's egg, the Pandora's box, whence issued 
this most atrocious and wicked rebellion ; but we know, too, that 
slavery was fastened upon the country far back in the past, and that 
our fathers were as much responsible for it as yours ; we look upon it 
as the most serious curse which was ever inflicted upon our people, 
but you have your constitutional rights, which we intend most scrupu- 
lously to regard. We know that the profits of the introduction of 
slavery from Africa into the American colonies were largely shared 
in by our ancestors at the North, and we do not intend that you shall 
be called upon to deliver up your slaves under any power which may 
be asserted in the prosecution of this war ; we do not want to confis- 
cate your slaves first and free them afterwards, or tvithout comjyensa- 

tion EVER." 

Sir, this resolution says, in the plainest possible terms, that the 
Federal Government, which is now, and will be for at least three years 
to come, in the hands of the North ; which is controlled and admin- 
istered almost exclusively by northern men ; nay, sir, if you please, 
conducted by a President and Cabinet and Congress installed by the 
Republican party ; that this Government will wait, that it will bide 
its time for the emancipation of slaves in each particular State un^il 
each shall, of its own volition, come forward and incept for itself a 
plan or system of emancipation which will be just to all, an infringe- 
ment of no man's rights, and in nowise a violation of the letter or 
spirit of our Federal Constitution. But further: it says that, inas- 
much as the people of the North, who were the carriers in the incep- 
tion of this grand system of slavery, inasmuch as by being the car- 
riers of the slaves from the shores of Africa to this continent they 
made large profits, inasmuch as they have put large gains in their 
pockets by the business of slave-dealing, and to that extent have been 
participants in fastening this great eyil upon the people of the cmin- 
try, they will, in the event of the inauguration by any State of a 
scheme of emancipation, not permit the whole expense of emancipa- 
tion and colonization of the slaves to fjiU upon the people of the State 



alone, but, in a spirit of justice and cqnity, amounting, in my view, to 
magnanimity, will choeitiiUy bear upon their sliouldcrs an equal por- 
tion of the burden. The North, by this proposition, agrees to divide 
with the South the expense of whatever system of emancipation and 
colonization may be adopted by the several States. 

Much has been said, Mr. Speaker, by our friends over the way, re- 
specting the magnitude of the expense involved in this proposition, if 
accorded to by all the States. Sir, it is not contemplated by the reso- 
lution — it is not contemplated by the President in his message — nay, 
sir, it is not even expected or believed by the gentlemen themselves — 
that_there would be, under its operation, an immediate abolition of 
slavery in all the Southern States. It is not proposed that there shall 
be a suddeu and immediate emancipation of all the slaves in any one 
of the States; nor is there the remotest possibility that any. State 
would act so uuwisely as to attempt any such disturbing policy as 
that of bringing- all her slaves to freedom by one- single bound. No, 
sir. The bill proposes gradual emancipation for compensation — not 
sudden abolition without it. And let us now suppose that the policy 
were to commence in ray own little State of Delaware, where there 
are not exceeding eighteen hundred slaves. Why, sir, the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Diven) has already stated, and truly stated, that 
what it costs the country to carry on this war for half a day will pay 
for every slave now owned in the State of Delaware. Yes, sir, that is 
true, and more than true; the cost of the prosecution of this war to 
put down a rebellion begotten by slavery for half a day will not only 
pay for all the slaves in my State, at full prices, but will leave a heavy 
margin to provide a fnnd for the removal- from our midst, not only the 
freed slaves, but the entire negro population, and colonize them in 
any other country provided for them by the General Government. 

In my humble judgment, this plan of gradual emancipation by the 
States, in which they are themselves to take the initiative, is the very 
best that could possibly be suggested or devised. The States choose 
their own plan of emancipation, and then they are invited by this 
proposition to rely upon the strong arm of the Federal Government 
to aid them in its complete and successful accomplishment. 

If it is objected that the offer by the General Government of the 
proposed aid is a recognition of the propriety of the adoption by 
the States as soon as they can without detriment, public or private, 
to the white race, of some policy of gradual emancipation and coloni- 
zation, I have only to reply th-at on this account I hail the message of the 
President as a return to the glorious principles which moved and prompt- 
ed our fathers, who framed for us the Constitution and Government un 



6 

dor which we live ; a Constitution the most liberal, and a Government 
the most mild and benignant that the world has ever known. Yes, 
sir; it is but a return to that principle from which for forty years we 
have been unconsciously drifting ; one which we must all acknowledge 
to be right when we can free ourselves from party trammels, and think 
with minds free from passion or ignoble prejudice. It is but a return 
to a principle of right, acknowledged by and acted upon by the men 
composing the convention which adopted our Constitution, and among 
the foremost of those by the representatives in that body of the State 
of Virginia, now the most rampant, next to South Carolina, in promo- 
ting and carrying on this wicked and gigantic rebellion. 

Let us recur, sir, for but a moment, to the period of the organization 
of this Government, and read the debates of the convention of 1787, 
which_ framed the Federal Constitution. Sir, we find that it was th« 
almost universal sentiment of the men assembled in that immortal body 
that slavery was and would be the great curse of this country ; that 
it was a social, political, and moral evil, and one which ought to be 
put in the course of " ultimate extinclion" Nay, more than that, sir, 
Thomas Jefferson, the great founder of Democracy, whose name will 
go down to " the last recorded syllable of time," as the author of the 
Magna Charta of American liberty, when he 'drew the original draft 
of that great instrument, inserted a provision embodying this principle. 
In the enumeration of the grievances of the colonies against the King 
of Great Britian, he charges him substantially in these terms: "He 
has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most 
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who 
never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in 
another hemisphere. Determined to keep open a market where men 
should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative, for sup- 
pressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable 
commerce." Unfortunately, I think, that clause was stricken out 
Had it remained to this day as the polar star in the policy of our 
Government in dealing with this vexatious question of slavery, we 
should not now have presented to the world the humiliating and hor- 
rid spectacle of a civil war raging in the fairest Government under 
heaven, in which it is not thought a matter of such serious and awful 
consequence how many lives of our white brethren are sacrificed as it 
is how many miserable negroes have escaped from their masters and 
how many have been returned by our Army oflBcers. It was the 
recognition of a great fundamental principle of liberty and humanity 
which, smother it as you may, will, Arethusa-like, break forth ever and 
anon in the great American heart, North and South. 



In thus speaking, I do not wish it understood that T favor the cans* 
of abolition, wliich is a violent and sudden disruption of tlie relation 
of master and slave without consent, without compensation, and with- 
out regard to the dangerous and direful consequences which may re- 
sult to the communities in which that relation has subsisted for so 
long a time; but I hesitate not to declare that I believe the Almi^ty 
intended this Union as the home of the white race, created for them, 
not for the negro, and that is the duty of every patriot to consider, in 
the language of the President, under a full sense of his responsibility 
to his God and his country, how the separation of the two. distinct 
races, which can never, and ought never, to dwell together upon tcnnf 
of political and social equality, can be effected wilh the least jarring 
to the harmony and happiness of our country. 

And now, sir, I do not desire to trespass longer upon the attention 
of the House. I should not have arisen but for the purpose of saying, 
as I have already intimated, that entertaining the views which I have 
expressed, and believing that they are the sentiments of a majority of 
those whom I have the honor to represent, I shall most cheerfully vote 
for this proposition, not because I regard it in the light in which it 
seems to be viewed by my friends from Kentucky, but because 1 look 
upon it as a pledge freely offered by the northern States to us of the 
South — a pledge from a northern Administration — that so long asth« 
power of this Government shall be wielded by the North, it will wait 
antil the States' themselves shall have taken the initiative in measures 
of emancipation, and then will only intervene so far as to aid by its 
powerful arm in the work of carrying out the policy which each Stat« 
may in its wisdom adopt. In that view, and in that view only, I cor- 
dially yield my assent and approval to the proposition made to us -bv 
the President as contained in the resolution now before us. 



L. TOWERS <t CO., prititers. 



